Nobody that actually knows me would would ever accuse me of being overly generous in my assessment of human nature.  In fact, since college, most of my friends have considered me rather cynical in this regard.  I maintain that I am not cynical, but rather skeptical and realistic.

That's why today, as I watched the whole "Motrin moms" firestorm unfolding online, I kept tempering my "blink" reaction to make sure I was really seeing what I was seeing.  My blink reaction after watching the Motrin ad that started it all was that it was just another annoying ad... like about a million other annoying ads.  But when I saw the explosion of self-righteous indignation and outrage in Twitter, blogs, and other social media, I had to keep revisiting the the ad to see the evil I must be missing.

But I don't see it.

Yea, I know, someone will say, "but you're not a mom who carries their kid."  True.  But I am a dad who carried his kids.  A 2-year-old son and twin infant daughters.  But this is not really the point.

And I did get stiff muscles and once a nastily kinked neck as a result.  But this is not the point, either.

The point seems to be that mothers (mostly) are offended because carrying their baby is important to them and for one reason or another they feel the ad mocks them (which, in some ways, it does.)  But come on... get over it.

Have you ever seen a beer commercial that makes the beer drinkers out to be complete idiots or jerks?  Do I get offended because I drink beer and they are therefore mocking me?  (Hint: no, because I have enough self-confidence to know that the idiots in those commercial are not me.)

I acknowledge that I could be missing the real point here; that there might be something deeply and fundamentally bad about the ad and I am just too insensitive, or too dense, to see it.  But one thing the Motrin moms have convincingly demonstrated is the power of social media.  Within hours, Motrin had pulled the ad and had actually shutdown its web site.

There is no doubt that social media is a new, important, and powerful force.  Marketing organizations, take note.